“Ready?”
She shook her head, a small smile gracing her lips. “Not even a little bit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Taylor
I was walking into the Dimarco’s house, and for the first time in a long time, I felt completely intimidated, but Aaron wasn’t giving me a chance to process those feelings, considering he was dragging me up the front porch stairs to stand in front of the door.
He barely rang the bell before the door was thrown open and mass chaos greeted us. “Hey, man, come on in.”
I stepped through the door and glanced around, trying to take it all in at once, but there was too much going on for me to process it that quickly. Aaron tugged on my hand until I faced him, and he motioned toward the man in front of us.
“Taylor, this is Jake, one of Luke’s brothers.”
I stuck out my hand, which he shook. “Hi, Taylor.” He dropped my hand and slapped Aaron on the chest. “Man, Luke’s gonna be so happy you have your own woman now.”
Aaron chuckled beside me, but I was too distracted by the enormous number of people I saw moving around, just over his shoulder. Aaron grabbed my hand, but I kept my eyes forward when Jake said, “Come on back to the dining room where everyone is hanging out.”
I tugged on Aaron’s hand while we followed Jake and lowered my voice. “We didn’t bring a gift.”
“He said no gifts,” Aaron said quietly.
“Still,” I said, “we should’ve at least brought him a card.”
He squeezed my hand. “It’s fine. Jack Dimarco is most happy when he’s surrounded by people who matter to him.”
“But he invited me.” Confusion overwhelmed me. “And again, he doesn’t really know me.”
He leaned down and put his lips near my ear. “He knows me, and he knows how important you are to me.”
My head jerked back, and I looked up at Aaron, taking in the seriousness of his expression. I was just about to ask him to explain so I could understand what he was saying, but I was interrupted.
“About time you two got here.” Jack stood in front of us and pulled me in for a hug.
I pulled back and smiled genuinely. “Thanks for inviting me, Jack.”
He slung his arm across my shoulders and called out to the room. “Has everyone met Taylor?”
A chorus of ‘’hello’’ rang out to which I replied, “Nice to meet all of you.”
“Hi, Ms. Hawkins,” Kate said when I found her eyes across the room.
“Ms. Hawkins?” a man next to her said, his head tilted to the side.
Kate gestured toward me. “Ms. Hawkins is my boss.”
“Wait.” Jake held up his hand. “You work with Aaron?” Kate smiled and nodded. Jake faced Aaron and smirked. “Which means, you’re dating your boss.”
Taylor shook her head. “We’re not really—”
“Yes, I am,” Aaron interrupted.
My attention snapped to him, but his eyes were locked on the room at large.
“Nice, man.” A man standing beside Jake said before he looked my way and smiled. “I’m Ben.” He gestured toward Jake and then at a bunch of other men in the room. “Brother to him and the rest of them.”
I smiled while, one at a time, the others told me their names, and their wives and girlfriends did the same. I was happy to have names for all the faces, but there were too many to remember at this moment, especially considering my thoughts were still on Aaron’s declaration.
When the conversation, thankfully, moved from Aaron and me to a bunch of small conversations around the room, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had no problem being in a large group of people, but I didn’t love all the eyes on me.
“I hope this isn’t awkward for you, Ms. Hawkins.”
I turned at the sound of the voice I was so familiar with and smiled. “Kate, call me Taylor.”
Her eyes widened, but then she smiled slowly. “Okay, Taylor, I’d like you to meet my husband, Luke.”
I looked over her shoulder and smiled at the tall and extremely handsome man standing behind her. “Hi, Luke.”
He returned my smile. “Nice to finally meet you Taylor.”
“You too,” I answered, just as I felt an arm fall across my shoulders. I looked up at Aaron who was smiling at Luke.
“It’s about damn time, man,” Luke said, and Aaron chuckled when Kate frowned at Luke and shot her elbow back to catch him in the stomach.
“Your brother thought you might feel that way.”
“You guys are all crazy.” Kate rolled her eyes and shook her head.
I stumbled when a dog ran right into the side of my leg while he pushed through the small space between Kate and me. Aaron wrapped his arm around my waist when I fell back against him and chuckled near my ear. I watched as a line of kids, all wearing their coats, followed the dog to the patio doors and shoved outside after Ben threw open the door.
“That was Cookie.” Aaron’s warm breath fanned across my ear.
“Cookie?” I glanced back at Aaron who jerked his chin in Kate’s direction when she spoke.
“Cookie’s our dog,” Kate stated.
“And he’s fucking crazy,” Jake said.
I glanced in his direction when Luke looked his way and they shared a look. I didn’t know either of them well enough to understand the look, but I didn’t need to know them well at all to see the connection between them. Between all of them. I had that with my sister but never with my parents and certainly never extended family, yet looking around this house, all I saw was family and extended family.
It was incredible.
And what should have felt overwhelming felt warm and inviting instead.
Looking out the sliding glass doors, I watched as the kids ran around, chasing Cookie and a small dog I hadn’t noticed before. There were more kids than I could count, and I felt a pang of want settle in my heart. I’d always wanted a big family, but lately, I’d begun to accept it just wasn’t in the cards for me.
“Taylor, Aaron tells us that you bought a house.” I searched the room until I found Jack standing near Jake who now had his arm around his fiancée, Lanie.
I nodded. “I did. It’s just a few minutes out of town.”
“Kate said you and Aaron were fighting over it.”
“I did not.” Kate slapped Luke’s shoulder whose had his eyes locked on Aaron with a teasing glint in his eye.
Aaron tightened his arm that still wrapped around my waist. “We did, but with some persuasion, she won.”
I snapped my attention up at Aaron who was grinning down at me and glared.
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between his, and I smiled before facing Luke again. “I can be very persuasive.”
He laughed, and I was surprised when the family joined him. I turned my head toward Jack, who laughed the hardest and the loudest.
He winked at me. “We’re glad you finally persuaded him, darlin’.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Aaron
“Merry Christmas, baby.”
She moaned when I pushed in deeper and wrapped my hands around her hips. I was thrusting deeper than I think I ever had before, partly because of our position and partly because of how slow I was going.
She’d shocked the hell out of me when I woke up to her mouth wrapped around my cock and her eyes on me. It wasn’t long before she slid up my body and gave me the control she loved for me to have. And now I had her on her knees, handcuffs binding her to the headboard and moaning my name, which I fucking loved.
It had been two weeks of talking and sex. Two weeks of spending all our time together, both in and out of the office. I was true to my word at work and addressed her as I always had because I knew it was important that she maintained that level of professionalism in front of the other agents. But when we both finished for the day, which was getting earlier and earlier every day, we were Taylor and Aaron, and we were so completely intertwined with each other that we hadn�
��t spent a night apart since Jack’s birthday party.
“Come for me, Taylor,” I encouraged, pushing in as deep as I could, and I felt her clench around me. It only took a few more hard, deep thrusts before she came and came hard, taking me right along with her. I collapsed beside her before reaching up to unhook her from the headboard and rubbed my fingers along her wrists. She sighed and snuggled in deeper to the thick and heavy comforter on her bed. We’d taken turns between our homes, but considering she was moving into her new house after the first of the year, I’d been spending the night more often at her place. I wanted her to have all the time she wanted and needed in the place she’d called home for the past ten years.
“What time is it?” she mumbled against the pillow.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand beside her bed. “Four.”
“Do you think we should get up?”
I threw my phone down and wrapped my arms around her. She’d agreed to go to my sister’s house this morning with me and watch my nephews open their presents. It was a big step, but for some reason, it felt completely natural both when I asked her and when she agreed. We also planned to eat with them and then stop at her parents' house afterward.
“Probably,” I muttered against her soft hair.
“I need a shower,” she said, and I nodded, knowing I did too. We’d had problems sleeping beside each other and not touching each other, which inevitably led to very hot and sweaty sex. We’d also been having that hot sex without a condom after we discussed it and decided since she was on birth control and we were exclusive, we no longer needed them.
I rolled onto my back, afraid I was going to fall back to sleep, and pushed myself from the bed. I stood and leaned down, grinning when I scooped her up, and she squealed. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure we don’t fall back to sleep,” I said while I carried her across the small room to the bathroom.
“I can walk,” she said.
“Why?” I asked, setting her on the bathroom counter and leaning into the shower to turn on the water.
“Well, first of all because you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep carrying me around.”
I checked the water temperature before I turned to face her again. Placing my hands on either side of her legs, I bent down until we were face to face. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
She did. I could tell by the expression on her face, and that confused me. I watched her and waited patiently, but she never verbally answered, only shrugged her shoulders before she changed the subject. “We should get in the shower.”
She started to move like she was going to get down when something occurred to me. I placed my hands on her thighs to stop her. “Wait a minute, is that why you threw out your pastry?”
Her expression changed to confusion. “What?”
“The day Kate and I saw you at Joe’s for lunch. You bought a coffee and some kind of pastry, but then you walked outside and threw it in the trash can.”
Her eyes widened. “That was over a month ago. How do you remember that?”
I tilted my head to the side. “I didn’t understand why you would do that. It bothered me. It still does.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I was kind of heavy in my teens and early twenties, and then I lost the weight. I gave up all the junk food and became really healthy, well, except I started smoking.”
My eyebrows drew down. “You smoke?”
“Not anymore and I only really smoked at home.” She laid her hands over mine that still rested on her thighs. “I quit a little while ago.” I nodded, and she continued. “I just don’t want to gain the weight back.”
I arched an eyebrow. “So you order pastries and then throw them away?”
She laughed. “No, I ordered it that day because I wanted it, but then I knew it was a bad idea and felt guilty.”
I lifted one of my hands and ran it up over her side until it rested against the side of her neck. “Do you know that I have been physically attracted to you since you interviewed me?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You have?”
I nodded and leaned in closer, pressing my lips against hers softly before I pulled back. “You have the most amazing curves, baby. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched you walk to Kate’s desk with a fucking hard-on. You’ve had the power to both piss me off and turn me on.”
Her lips spread slowly into a smile and red tinged her cheeks, so I continued. “You eat all the pastries you want, baby, because all it does is add to those curves. And if you gain weight and don’t like it, we’ll work it off in bed.”
She giggled and leaned her forehead against mine. “You’re good for my self-esteem, Mr. Barlett.”
I growled. “You can’t call me that when you’re naked and expect me not to carry you back to bed.”
She grinned. “Your nephews are waiting.”
“Damn.” I dropped my head and laid a kiss against her neck before I helped her down and pulled her into the shower with me.
We took our time in the shower because we had it, but also because I wanted to show her that my words weren’t just words, and I meant it when I said her curves made me harder than anything else ever had in my life. After she cried out my name, I turned off the water and handed her a towel just as my phone dinged with a message.
She smiled and quickly finished drying while I moved back into the bedroom and grabbed my phone. I grinned at the message from my sister and held up the phone. “Jess says we have a half hour. She must be predicting when they’ll be up.”
“That’s the perfect amount of time,” she answered.
I got dressed and finished in the bathroom so she could have it before I headed to her kitchen and started the coffee. I knew she would need it as much as I would if we were going to make it through the entire day on the few hours of sleep we’d actually gotten. I’d just poured a cup for her and myself when her doorbell rang. I looked back down the short hallway, but I heard her hair dryer, so I knew she hadn’t heard it. Walking around her small island, I headed toward the door, and when I checked the peephole, I saw who could only be her sister standing on the other side.
I yanked open the door and smiled when her eyes met mine. She peeked over my shoulder before her eyes lit and came back to me.
She stepped close to wrap her arms around me in a hug. “You must be Aaron.”
We pulled apart, and I chuckled. “You must be Renee.”
She did a small curtsey. “The one and only.” I laughed and stepped back, waiting while she grabbed her suitcase and came in. “Do you think she figured out I was coming?”
“No, I really don’t,” I answered and closed the door behind her.
She dropped her bag by the door and turned to face me. “I know you guys have plans with your sister because Tay told me, so I’ll just spend the morning here or with our parents.”
She made a face when she mentioned her parents that made me laugh. “That’s crazy. Just come with us.”
She looked taken aback. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” I insisted. “Besides, Taylor’s going to want to spend as much time as she can with you while you’re here.”
“Aaron, have you seen my black sweater?”
Renee and I turned at the same time to watch Taylor walk down the short hallway toward us, but her face was turned down while she rooted through her purse, obviously looking for something. When I didn’t answer, she lifted her head and stopped. Her eyes widened, and she squealed loudly when she dropped her purse and ran at her sister. Renee returned the squeal and met her halfway, the sisters hugging and talking at the same time.
I laughed and leaned back against the island, just watching and enjoying another side of Taylor that I haven’t had the privilege of seeing until now. The giddy older sister. It was fucking awesome to watch.
When they finally pulled back, Taylor looked over at me. “Did you know she was coming?”
I sh
rugged, not wanting any recognition, but Renee spoke up. “He not only knew, but it was his idea, and he paid for my ticket.”
Taylor broke away from her sister and came to stand right in front of me. “I can’t believe you did that for me.”
I wrapped my hand around the side of her neck and leaned down so our faces were close together. “I’d do anything for you, baby.”
“Aww,” Renee said dramatically, her hand against her chest. “You guys are so freaking sweet together.”
I shook my head and chuckled at her sister, but Taylor just leaned in and pressed her lips against mine. “Thank you.”
I wrapped my arms around her. “You’re welcome.”
Taylor jerked back and turned to face Renee, her back pressed against my chest. “Oh, wait, we have to leave.”
“We’re all leaving,” I said.
Taylor’s eyes snapped back to meet mine. “What do you mean?”
“Aaron invited me along, so we can spend the whole day together,” Renee said, excitedly.
“He did?” Taylor shifted her attention to Renee while she spoke, but then quickly brought her attention back to me. “Are you sure that’s okay?”
“I’m positive.”
She turned in my arms again and pressed her chest against mine before pushing up onto her toes and pressing her lips to mine. I wrapped my arms around her waist and deepened the kiss, only pulling back when I heard her sister clear her throat.
“Not that I’m not happy you guys found each other, but it looks like if I don’t stop you, I’m going to have to go hide in the bathroom until you’re finished.”
I laughed and turned Taylor around, but kept my arms around her waist while she faced her sister, and they started talking about their plans for the entire week Renee would to be in town. While they continued to plan, I moved away and prepared three travel mugs for us before ushering everyone out to my car.
When we were finally at my sister’s house, I sat back on
the couch and watched my nephews open their presents while my sister, Taylor, and Renee chatted beside me.
At one point, I caught my sister’s stare over Taylor’s head, and she smiled and nodded. I knew she was excited, having always wanted me to find the same kind of happy she’d found with Dan.
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